“Presidential Team” announcement is a sign of drawback from elections: political analyst

After the ‘Presidential Team’ initiative announced on Saturday their demands in order to run for 2018 presidential elections, political expert Gehad Ouda questions the seriousness of their intentions to run for elections.

The initiative was announced by former presidential adviser and planetary scientist Essam Heggy in 2016, who explained that several Egyptian revolutionaries were forming a “presidential team” to run in the 2018 elections.

“The current regime is living in a state of disrespecting the Constitution by narrowing partisan work in Egypt, oppressing the opposition, and arresting youths in an unlawful manner; hence, the Presidential Team initiative has made its decision,” the statement read.

The initiative further listed its demands, which included establishing a national elections committee supervised by the judiciary, ending the state of emergency, allowing international organisations to supervise elections, allowing campaign conferences to be held without security permission, and releasing all political detainees as well as defendants in cases of freedom of expression.

Ouda told Daily News Egypt that such demands were impossible to realise within the laws regulating the country.

“Did [candidates] say in France that they would only run for elections if state emergency ends?” Ouda said, adding that the demands should be considerate of the current security situation.

Ouda explained that instead of announcing such demands, political powers should try to create a political atmosphere suitable for elections.

He further described their announcement as drawing back from elections, adding that “there are several ways to draw back from running to elections, and this is one of them”.

“They [Presidential Team] would not run for elections; even if they do, they wouldn’t get 20% of votes; they might even get only 1%,” he added.

In July 2016, Heggy explained in a statement that the main purpose of this initiative was to end the poor conditions of sordid poverty, ignorance, and disease, through achieving high levels of education and healthcare, in addition to establishing a civil state that employs young experts to achieve progress.